“All You Zombies,” by Robert Heinlein- it’s probably the best mind-blowing time travel paradox story ever written. (Which is saying something.)
What’s interesting, and what I didn’t really pick up until this reading, is the point of the title. The protagonist knows that his circumstances are really unusual, but he’s accustomed to them- what baffles him is how everyone else manages get along.
It’s bizarre to take his point- his life, logically, actually does make sense. It’s our lives, causally sloppy and indeterminate, that require a great effort of explanation.
Showing posts with label time travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time travel. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Baxter's Ambiguous Alternate
So, after picking it up and putting it down several times, I finished Stephen Baxter's Conquerer.
It's the second book in his "Time's Tapestry" series, about a prophecy delivered (apparently by time travel) to ancient Britain; and the way it affects the many generations of people who encounter it.
The prophecy is a complicated work of Latin poetry which describes the history of Britain by intervals, with dates linked by the regular return of Halley's Comet. As the series progresses, it becomes obvious that the prophecy is accurate- though its meaning is sometimes unclear until it comes to pass.
The legend surrounding the prophecy says that it was written by "The Weaver," a manipulator from the future who is trying to bring some historical incident to pass. It's unclear where this legend came from, or why people would preserve it since it makes the prophecy heretical; though of course as science fiction readers we understand its meaning at once.
Which comes to the odd part (or, I guess, the interesting part): it's unclear if the Prophecy is working. It undoubtedly changes individual lives; many people live or die because of its influence. But every historical incident it impinges on seems to work out in just the way it did in our actual historical record. Either it's very subtle, or it's not working, or else our history is the one it's trying to bring about.
This second book strongly suggests the second possibility; things haven't worked out as expected. But, of course, that's all a matter of perspective.
It's the second book in his "Time's Tapestry" series, about a prophecy delivered (apparently by time travel) to ancient Britain; and the way it affects the many generations of people who encounter it.
The prophecy is a complicated work of Latin poetry which describes the history of Britain by intervals, with dates linked by the regular return of Halley's Comet. As the series progresses, it becomes obvious that the prophecy is accurate- though its meaning is sometimes unclear until it comes to pass.
The legend surrounding the prophecy says that it was written by "The Weaver," a manipulator from the future who is trying to bring some historical incident to pass. It's unclear where this legend came from, or why people would preserve it since it makes the prophecy heretical; though of course as science fiction readers we understand its meaning at once.
Which comes to the odd part (or, I guess, the interesting part): it's unclear if the Prophecy is working. It undoubtedly changes individual lives; many people live or die because of its influence. But every historical incident it impinges on seems to work out in just the way it did in our actual historical record. Either it's very subtle, or it's not working, or else our history is the one it's trying to bring about.
This second book strongly suggests the second possibility; things haven't worked out as expected. But, of course, that's all a matter of perspective.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
The Accidental Time Machine
Joe Haldeman's latest novel, The Accidental Time Machine, is a book perfectly described by its title. Graduate student Matt Fuller accidentally builds a graviton meter that also functions as a time machine, with two major limitations:
1) It only goes forward, not backward;
2) Each jump through time is twelve times longer than the last.
The machine starts out jumping a few seconds into the future; by the time Fuller's ready to try a full-fledged experiment, with himself along for the ride, it takes him a month forward.
The machine isn't really controllable, or navigatable. The only thing it's indisputably good for is escaping your present time; which is good, because Fuller has a knack for getting into trouble.
This is my first Haldeman novel. It's readable (and it helps that I'm a total sucker for time-travel stories.) Some of the entries are weak: the future period ruled by a fundamentalist theocracy (complete with a holographic Jesus Christ) reminded me intensely of Heinlein's Revolt in 2100.
(Hey, I'm linking myself! That's a triumph of blog depth! Or self-indulgence. Don't answer that.)
The ending is disappointingly incoherent; I have no clear understanding of what happened, and I'm not sure that I'm meant to. It may just be a mystery of unthinkably-advanced science and time-travel weirdness. But I'd at least like to be clear on my unclarity, if that makes any sense.
Come to think of it, the entire plot- invent forward-going time machine, explore the future, get into trouble, keep moving farther ahead- was Poul Anderson's novella "Flight to Forever." Which was, frankly, done a lot better.
But this wasn't too bad. Like I said, I'm a sucker for time-travel.
1) It only goes forward, not backward;
2) Each jump through time is twelve times longer than the last.
The machine starts out jumping a few seconds into the future; by the time Fuller's ready to try a full-fledged experiment, with himself along for the ride, it takes him a month forward.
The machine isn't really controllable, or navigatable. The only thing it's indisputably good for is escaping your present time; which is good, because Fuller has a knack for getting into trouble.
This is my first Haldeman novel. It's readable (and it helps that I'm a total sucker for time-travel stories.) Some of the entries are weak: the future period ruled by a fundamentalist theocracy (complete with a holographic Jesus Christ) reminded me intensely of Heinlein's Revolt in 2100.
(Hey, I'm linking myself! That's a triumph of blog depth! Or self-indulgence. Don't answer that.)
The ending is disappointingly incoherent; I have no clear understanding of what happened, and I'm not sure that I'm meant to. It may just be a mystery of unthinkably-advanced science and time-travel weirdness. But I'd at least like to be clear on my unclarity, if that makes any sense.
Come to think of it, the entire plot- invent forward-going time machine, explore the future, get into trouble, keep moving farther ahead- was Poul Anderson's novella "Flight to Forever." Which was, frankly, done a lot better.
But this wasn't too bad. Like I said, I'm a sucker for time-travel.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
The Multiverse Isn't a Subplot!
Today's book of consideration is James P. Hogan's The Proteus Operation; there will be some minor spoilage, I'm afraid. (But only minor!)
The novel begins in an alternate history where the Axis had a very successful World War II. It's now 1975, and America and Australia are the only non-Axis nations left in the world; but it's only a matter of time for them.
So they develop time-travel, planning to go back to the early 1940s and change a few things; and make their world, in the process, very much like the one we live in today. But things are much more complicated than they first appear.
(Here go my minor spoilers!)
The Americans actually stole time-travel from the Nazis; or rather, from the 21st-century renegades who decided they'd prefer a Nazi world to their original history. So ours isn't the first history, or the second, but the third; the original course of history is an idyllic world where Europe reached a better ending to WWI, and averted the bloody course of the late 20th century altogether.
So far, so good. I love time-travel stories. And while I'm skeptical of utopias (something I've been seeing a lot of in Hogan) the neatness of the history-behind-a-history-behind-a-history appealed to my juvenile sense of wonder.
But then things get annoying.
It turns out that changing history doesn't scale forward: the Utopia world and the Nazi world keep going on, regardless of what changes occur in 1940. That's a standard trope of time-travel stories, and it seems to resolve some paradoxes.
But these parallel worlds aren't related to the time-travel changes. They're borne of the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, in which every possible position of an electron manifests in an entirely different universe. So the time-travellers are never really interacting with their own history at all (I think. But, really, who can tell?)
I don't mind the Many-Worlds Hypothesis; it can certainly be the basis for some fascinating science fiction. But it makes a lousy subplot. It's too big; not just in size, but in implications. It affects everything. Any fair treatment of it will tend to overwhelm any other story the author's trying to tell.
Greg Egan's done some good work with the concept: particularly his brilliant Permutation City, which I hope to review someday soon. But he does this good work by acknowledging the way the multiverse has a radical impact on the basic ideas that we take for granted.
Proteus wasn't a bad novel; and I'm still a sucker for time travel. But this treatment removes the logical paradoxes that are the mainstay of time-travelling fun. With that taken away, it's more like a period piece.
The novel begins in an alternate history where the Axis had a very successful World War II. It's now 1975, and America and Australia are the only non-Axis nations left in the world; but it's only a matter of time for them.
So they develop time-travel, planning to go back to the early 1940s and change a few things; and make their world, in the process, very much like the one we live in today. But things are much more complicated than they first appear.
(Here go my minor spoilers!)
The Americans actually stole time-travel from the Nazis; or rather, from the 21st-century renegades who decided they'd prefer a Nazi world to their original history. So ours isn't the first history, or the second, but the third; the original course of history is an idyllic world where Europe reached a better ending to WWI, and averted the bloody course of the late 20th century altogether.
So far, so good. I love time-travel stories. And while I'm skeptical of utopias (something I've been seeing a lot of in Hogan) the neatness of the history-behind-a-history-behind-a-history appealed to my juvenile sense of wonder.
But then things get annoying.
It turns out that changing history doesn't scale forward: the Utopia world and the Nazi world keep going on, regardless of what changes occur in 1940. That's a standard trope of time-travel stories, and it seems to resolve some paradoxes.
But these parallel worlds aren't related to the time-travel changes. They're borne of the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, in which every possible position of an electron manifests in an entirely different universe. So the time-travellers are never really interacting with their own history at all (I think. But, really, who can tell?)
I don't mind the Many-Worlds Hypothesis; it can certainly be the basis for some fascinating science fiction. But it makes a lousy subplot. It's too big; not just in size, but in implications. It affects everything. Any fair treatment of it will tend to overwhelm any other story the author's trying to tell.
Greg Egan's done some good work with the concept: particularly his brilliant Permutation City, which I hope to review someday soon. But he does this good work by acknowledging the way the multiverse has a radical impact on the basic ideas that we take for granted.
Proteus wasn't a bad novel; and I'm still a sucker for time travel. But this treatment removes the logical paradoxes that are the mainstay of time-travelling fun. With that taken away, it's more like a period piece.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
The Spoiler That Wasn't
One of the big holes in my science-fiction reading is Robert Heinlein. I don't know why; somehow I just never got around to reading him. So I'm trying to make up for lost time.
This week's Heinlein book was The Door Into Summer, an intriguing tale of cats, cryogenic freezing, time travel, and business fraud. I picked it because I love time travel; I'm a total sucker for almost any time travel story.
"The Spoiler That Wasn't" is the cover- which shows a cat, a female, a cryogenic freezer and a bush. Halfway through the book, I looked back at the cover and realized that it had just spoiled the entire plot for me. Grrrrrrr!
... And then I got to the end of the book, and discovered that it hadn't. That the cover, in fact, had no direct relation to the plot at all; it simply pictured several elements in the novel.
(The female, cat, and cryogenic chamber, that is. I have no clue why the bush is there.)
Something similar happened to me when I went to see The Sixth Sense. Someone on an online message board commented that the surprise ending was that the kid's mom had murdered his dad- and that's what prompted his uncanny connection with the dead.
I was really annoyed that the ending had been spoiled for me, went in, watched it- and was taken completely by surprise when the real ending hit. The guy on the message board had been joking, and his spoiler was actually an anti-spoiler: if I hadn't thought that I knew the ending, I would have been trying to figure it out, and I might have succeeded.
This week's Heinlein book was The Door Into Summer, an intriguing tale of cats, cryogenic freezing, time travel, and business fraud. I picked it because I love time travel; I'm a total sucker for almost any time travel story.
"The Spoiler That Wasn't" is the cover- which shows a cat, a female, a cryogenic freezer and a bush. Halfway through the book, I looked back at the cover and realized that it had just spoiled the entire plot for me. Grrrrrrr!
... And then I got to the end of the book, and discovered that it hadn't. That the cover, in fact, had no direct relation to the plot at all; it simply pictured several elements in the novel.
(The female, cat, and cryogenic chamber, that is. I have no clue why the bush is there.)
Something similar happened to me when I went to see The Sixth Sense. Someone on an online message board commented that the surprise ending was that the kid's mom had murdered his dad- and that's what prompted his uncanny connection with the dead.
I was really annoyed that the ending had been spoiled for me, went in, watched it- and was taken completely by surprise when the real ending hit. The guy on the message board had been joking, and his spoiler was actually an anti-spoiler: if I hadn't thought that I knew the ending, I would have been trying to figure it out, and I might have succeeded.
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